Euro 2012 Final Sets Viewership Record In Spain

Spain's 4-0 win over Italy Sunday in the Euro 2012 final was "the most watched football match in history," according to EUROPA PRESS. The Spanish team "beat all the records not only in sports but also in the history of television." Telecinco's broadcast was watched by 15.4 million people, or an 83.4% share. For more than one minute, more than 20 million people were tuned. That excludes "all the spectators that followed the game in the streets on gigantic screens installed across Spanish cities." The most watched minute came at 10:32pm GMT when 17.8 million people were watching the broadcast for a 90% share (EP, 7/2).

ITALY: In Italy, Rai Uno's broadcast of the Azzurri's defeat was watched by 22.5 million people, or an 81.7% share (SPONSORING.fr, 7/2).
GERMANY: In Germany, more than 20 million people watched Spain's historic victory. An average of 20.3 million people watched ZDF's broadcast of the Euro 2012 final. That's a market share of 56.2%. It was also "the most-watched game of the tournament that did not feature the German national team" (HAMBURGER ABENDBLATT, 7/2).

FRANCE: In France, 12.9 million people were tuned in for TF1's broadcast of the final, which resulted in a 48% share. The "peak audience" was 14.5 million people. It was the "second-best audience" of the tournament and the "fourth-best audience ever" for a game not featuring the French national team (SPONSORING.fr, 7/2).

U.S.: In the U.S., ESPN earned a 3.0 overnight rating for the Euro 2012 final, down slightly from the 3.1 overnight the event pulled for ABC in '08. Because of deadly weekend thunderstorms in the Eastern half of the country, overnight information from Baltimore, Columbus, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. are not included in this figure. Miami-Ft. Lauderdale was the top market (6.51), followed by N.Y. (5.82) and L.A. (4.86). The rest of the top 10 were S.F., Austin, San Diego, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Providence, Richmond and Las Vegas (John Ourand, THE DAILY). The AP’s Ronald Blum reported the Spain-Portugal and Italy-Germany semifinals averaged 1.9 million viewers, a 46% "increase from 1.3 million four years ago.” With both semis starting at 2:45pm ET, Spain's win was “seen by 1.9 million on Wednesday," while Italy's win Thursday "drew by 1.9 million the following day.” ESPN said that the semis “averaged 576,000 additional viewers on computers, smart phones, tablets and Xbox.” Blum noted the first 31 matches “averaged 1.2 million viewers on ESPN's networks, up 61% from '08.” Blum: "In an era when many sports struggle to maintain ratings, U.S. viewership of international soccer is increasing at a startling rate" (AP, 7/1).

U.K.: In London, John Plunkett noted the Euro 2012 final averaged 12.3 million viewers on BBC1, with a 15-minute peak of 13.3 million on Sunday night. Meanwhile, ITV1's coverage of the match averaged 2 million viewers, with a 15-minute peak of 2.2 million. Overall, BBC1's Match of the Day Live “pulled in 10.2 million viewers, a 41.3% share, between 7pm and 10.15pm” GMT (GUARDIAN, 7/2).

TWITTER: Twitter said that global traffic peaked at 15,358 tweets per second Sunday as Spain scored its fourth and final goal against Italy in the Euro 2012 championship match, "setting a sports-related record on the social networking site." Twitter said that it registered a total of 16.5 million tweets worldwide during the match in Kiev (AP, 7/2).